


Left Behind

by Darkhorse



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhorse/pseuds/Darkhorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this prompt on the Kink Meme; http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/13488.html?thread=10572976#t10572976<br/>Cosette never knew why her father just vanished one day nor what happened to her love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Behind

It had been two months. Two months since Marius had sent her the letter saying he was going to the barricades with his friends, to fight for a new republic. Two months since she had woken from a restless sleep to see her father heading off down the street dressed in his National Guard uniform, with a purpose in his stride. Two months since cannon booms and gunfire had broken the peace of day and night. Two months since silence had fallen once again... like a smothering pillow over the city. 

There had been no more communication from Marius, since that letter, and her father had not returned. At first she'd reassured herself and Toussaint that her father was merely on one of his trips, which he would disappear on at irregular intervals, returning after a few days. But he never came back. Eventually, she gave up hoping, gave up pretending. Her father wasn't coming back. She joined Toussaint in making ends meet.

But slowly, slowly, the money ran out. Despite their economies, no more new dresses, no more carriage hire, it dripped from their hands. Toussaint took in sewing, mending, on the quiet, and darned their own dresses so it didn't even notice. Frippery disappeared from their lives, as did white bread, special patisserie, and eventually, three meals a day. Two did well enough. When the time came, they could only just scrape together the next months rent, Cosette had no idea how they would manage from now on. They were doing their best but it wasn't enough. Every knock on the door, some part of her hoped would reveal Papa, tired but existing. It never did. And the knocks themselves were few and far between.

This knock was more authoritative than many of the previous ones and Cosette lifted her head hopefully as she heard Toussaint's quick-step to the door. She came to her bedroom doorway to see it open to admit not her father but a very tall man, dressed in a long black great-coat and top hat which only increased his presence in the room, by making him even more intimidatingly tall. He turned, looking about with a quick eye she could only associate with the police. His they rested on her  
“Mademoiselle Fauchelevent” The inflection made it as much question as acknowledgement and she nodded her head in assent “I apologise for the intrusion”  
“It is little matter-” She waited, uncertain what rank regalia she should look for  
“Inspector.... Inspector Javert” There was a deep pause between the two parts, as if he did not wish to connect the one to the other, but she ignored it, stepping to guide him to the ante-chamber  
“Please”  
He doffed his hat, walking forward to sit in one of the chairs by the fire. He looked back to her, Toussaint standing nervously behind her  
“Do not be afraid, I am not here officially”  
She nodded, stepping forwards demurely even as her heart leaped , Inspectors knew everything, they had eyes and ears all over the city “Monsieur, do you have news of my father?”  
He nodded.

Javert pulled his eyes away, giving himself time. He had news, but how could he tell her. The empty fireplace mocked him, and he was bitterly glad that the memories took him away.

The students were fighting well, he had to admit that. But gradually the National Guard were progressing to the barricade, no falling back this time. His musket armed, he followed a few steps to their heels, ready to shoot, if he absolutely had to. A flash of white through the barricade caught his eye... white hair?.  
The muskets cracked and there were thumps as somethings, bodies most likely, he realised with a sick stomach, fell to the cobbled streets behind the barricade. And still the students fought, holding their ground, firing occasionally slashing out with what weapons they had to hand as they retreated into the cafe and wine shop which stood beyond the rear of their barricade. He scrambled up and over the barricade with more grace than the soldiers, overtaking a rank despite being older than most of them, the commander excepted. Even before he hit the ground, his eyes were scanning across the cobbles. Bodies lay everywhere, sprawled on the cold stone, slumped against their precious barricade. He swallowed as one face after another drew his eyes. They were all so young, so young to die in from muskets and bayonets. They should have stuck to their studies, made something of themselves. At least two had been medical students, more doctors, which one day might make the hospitals a place of life rather than the almost inevitable death. Others were to be lawyers, perhaps. That he did not mind loosing so much, lawyers enjoyed freeing those with enough money. But still, all the promise thrown away on political stupidity. What a senseless waste.  
One of the lesser officers bellowed from the cafe and the remaining troops hared in there. He stayed outside, searching.

The white clashed with the crimson even as is was dyed. 

He picked his way over, trying to keep his boots clean, and knelt next to the older man, bent against the barricade, checking for life. Moments after he touched he felt Jean stir, and those eyes, those damnable eyes, rested on him.  
Jean stirred as he felt the touch, and Javert found those damned eyes resting on him.  
“So the wolf has downed his prey at last” His voice was so soft, Javert found it worrying. This wasn't just keeping quiet, there was an effort in the lift of the chest that meant weakness, pain, blood-loss. Yet still he could only stare uncomprehendingly as Valjean lifted two shaking wrists, parallel to each other in the air, offering them to him  
“You've longed for this Javert, hunted me for years... Take your prisoner, Inspector.”  
This was it, the moment his life since 1823 had been aiming for, even when he seemed distracted. His hand cuffs were looped on his belt, close to his hip. He looked at the wrists, still bearing the scars of Toulon, It was so easy. Too easy.  
He lifted his head to meet Valjean's eyes “No”  
The look of disbelief was worth it, and he felt his lip half curl “A life for a life Valjean...I am an officer of the law, but I am also a fair man”  
The old man tried to laugh, but it came out as a gasping cough “Yes” Valjean gasped for breath, sagging more than Javert thought was possible given his already slumped position. He threatened to slip off the slant of the barricade which was holding him upright “Even in Toulon, you never hit out unless it was required, you never lay on one more lash... or with anymore force, than was needed.” As he finished he slipped abruptly. Javert caught him, finding himself cradling the older man. Valjean looked up at him, everything but fear in his eyes.  
“What are you still doing here?” Javert's common sense asserted itself at last.  
Valjean turned his head to look at one of the slain students nearby, Javert followed his eyes and saw the curly-headed young man who had warned him of the Patron Minette plot. “Trying to save Marius for Cosette.” The sadness was thick in the old man's voice “I have failed, and now she'll loose both of us.”  
Javert forced himself to scoff “You don't know that, they should have called you Jean le Bœuf not le Cric, you've got the constitution of an ox.”  
A dry chuckle and he knew his bluff had been caught, he hadn't hidden the pain in his eyes well enough  
“Even oxs can be felled by bullets, Javert”  
They both jumped at the loud crack of muskets from the Cafe and Javert found himself drawing the other man close, on some instinct trying to protect him, to comfort him. Valjean's breathing was growing shallower, catching in his throat, and Javert could no longer ignore the scarlet which was transferring itself from the older man's shirt to his own. This wasn't how it should have ended. Valjean was still young yet, he had another ten years with his daughter, helping the poor....  
“Javert” Valjean butted back into his thoughts and Javert found himself being offered a letter “Do something for me?”  
“Anything” The response came out automatically, but he found he meant it. He couldn't even understand why his heart was so full, why he was so bitter about the impending death... this was a criminal, a parole breaker, he held in his arms.  
“Give this to Cosette for me, number 55 Rue Plumet, Fauchelevent.”  
He nodded “I remember. And I'm an idiot for not noticing before.”  
Valjean smiled “You weren't supposed to.” He struggled to take the next breath, as though his lungs no longer wanted to work. He was blanching too, as the white shirt became scarlett, his face became pasty.  
Javert found his tongue working without his command “I wish I had found you, wish I'd dragged you away last night... God I wish I'd never denounced you in the first place...” He stopped it then, but it was too late, poor Valjean was looking at him with confusion in his eyes. And what could he say, but would admit his damnation, make it solid and immovable. He pulled his eyes away, looking across the strewn dead, as though not facing Valjean would make him deaf.  
“I love you”  
“And I you...” Jean's fingers reached up, brushing his jaw bone and he turned his head to look down again “I always have, and I always, always will.” As Javert watched his hand slid down to his side slowly, and those eyes glazed over gently.  
He bowed his head, using his hand to sweep back the unruly fringe and pressed a kiss to the old furrowed brow. When he broke the contact his sight blurred, and he let the tears fall, silently, slowly dropping to land on Valjean's shirt, on the peaceful face and the snow-white hair. He grieved.

“Leave the bodies until, tonight, send out word that those who wish may claim their relatives, for the rest the common pit.”  
The commander's voice shattered his solitude. His head came up from its bow to find the stern soldier's eyes resting on him, or rather on Valjean. His arms clenched tighter, closing as if that could protect the man he loved from the dismissal he saw in the commanders face  
“Not this one” the voice which found his ears did not sound like his own “He will have a proper burial, though none may claim him.”  
The commander glared at him, his lips forming for a cry of insubordination. He felt the eyes of other solders turn to their stalemate, then someone gasped  
“Old Fauchelevent.”  
The commander rounded on the young man who had spoken “You know him?”  
The boy, no older than the students, held his nerve “He's in the reserves.” Young eyes darted back to the body Javert held “Or he was.”  
“Then perhaps you would like to explain what he is doing here, out of uniform and on the wrong side of the barricade, without any identification eh?”  
“I expect he had come to try and persuade them to flee, abandon a useless fight and save their lives. Fauchelevent believed there was good in every man, would try to correct actions which went astray despite fine intentions.”  
The commander sniffed disbelievingly and Javert tensed as he found himself once again the object of scrutiny. He stared back, putting every inch of authority he possessed into his gaze. At last, after what felt like hours, the commander slashed his hand through the air  
“Take him, before I change my mind”  
“Sir” He put a dash of deference in his voice, but did not lower his eyes until the commander turned away. Then he hooked his free arm under Valjeans knees. Rising from his knees was near impossible, with Valjean's weight both filling his arms and pushing him off balance, but he was not going to let the poor man strike the cobbles like a sack of grain. The dead deserved dignity, even more so when they had died in futility. He was only distantly aware of a hand on either elbow pulling him upright, of the troop of soldiers who abandoned their assigned tasks to tear down part of the barricade so he could walk through unimpeded.

Daquin watched the inspector walk away down the street, the old man's body held in his arms like a child. It was a compelling sight, one which he found impossible to draw his eyes away from. And it was heart breaking, to the severest degree, made him even more grateful of his young wife at home, who would always be there, and would always fill his heart with love.  
“Poor Javert”  
“Never thought I'd hear you say that, ami... Can't see what old stone-heart has got to be sad about actually”  
He glanced over at the bullying solder who leant on the other side of the gap “You didn't see them?”  
The other raised his eyebrows “What?”  
Daquin looked away shrugging “Never mind.” he suspected the other man wouldn't understand, would make some rude comment if he explained, but he'd seen the Inspector's eyes as he held Faulchelevent, had seen a heart-break in them he'd never actually expected from the stern man, the same sort of heartbreak his father had worn after his mother's death years ago. Javert had loved Faulchelevent, loved him as more than a brother. He watched until the Inspector was swallowed by the cloudy darkness, of this day when the sun seemed destined not to rise.

His arms complained that Jean was heavy, but Javert's mind denied it. His legs complained they were wobbling, but his heart told them to pipe down, told them they would carry him to Digne, to the Sainted Bishop's grave if it would change things, if it could undo all he had done wrong and restore his Jean to life, so they could have those many many years again. The cloudiness of the day made it like night, but there were no stars. And why should there be, the stars had been the light of his life, guided his troupe across the wilds of France when they had to leave the roads to avoid rabbles, been the only constant thing all through the turmoil. The old man had taught him to read them years before he learned to read the written word, his mother had been impressed she let him rattle on about stars when there were customers in the tent. The stars had been his pride, his joy. Jean's presence in Montreuil-sur-Mer, the knowledge that someone cared for the poor, even for the gypsies, had been a joy to him. Jean had been the light in his life, a veiled light, hidden compared to the stars, but at the same time so much stronger than them, strong enough that he was drawn to follow, to find it, without even realising what it was he did. That light was gone now, snuffed out by bullets fired at foolish boys, which struck a man trying only to do what was best for others. That had been Jean's creed, which he realised he had known even before the conversion; the bread had been for his sister's youngest, then had come Fantine, the girl, his work as the begger who gave alms...And tonight on the barricade, trying to save his girl's sweetheart... All for others. Had Jean ever wanted anything for himself?  
To live life as a respectable man, not a hunted criminal, his mind mocked, and I denied him that. The thought was sour in mind and heart, making his stomach clench.

Only the silent, empty streets, bore witness to the Inspector's grief.

Cosette watched as the Inspector's eyes unmisted, tears trickling down his cheeks.  
“Monsieur” She was hesitant, unwilling to hurt him “My father... he is dead, isn't he?”  
The inspector nodded jerkily “Yes”

She felt her own heart tear, not even the assumption had prepared her for the truth. She bit her lip, fighting to retain her self control. “If you would tell me... which common grave holds him, that I might lay flowers there.” Her voice wobbled pathetically and she shrugged off Toussaint's comforting hand which came up to rest on her shoulder, if she relaxed now she would break entirely, and she was made of sterner stuff than most young girls, her Papa had told her that years ago, after they had climbed the wall that night. Most would have panicked, he had said, but she did exactly as she was told, without even a whimper. Her father wasn't here to see her, but she'd make him proud.  
The inspector took a long moment to reply, seemed to be holding himself together “Your father is not in a public grave, Mademoiselle...”  
Her heart sank, but she managed not to block out the Inspector's voice even as she realised that such an old man might just have been left for the pocket pickers, forgotten by the soldiers.  
“He has his own resting place, in Père Lachaise Cemetery.”  
“How? Who paid for it? I was his only family, as far as is known.”  
The inspector was not looking at her now, his eyes were turned to the wall opposite him, partly, she thought, to hide emotion he could not hold back. “I did, Mademoiselle.” She saw his throat bob as he swallowed hard “Your father, was an acquaintance of mine from when I was a young man, before he found you.”  
“He never mentioned you.”  
The inspector turned his head to look at her, speaking surprisingly gently “We parted on bad terms... I have no doubt he was trying to protect you from ghosts.” He fished in his pocket, drawing out a folded piece of paper and holding it out to her “He gave me this to give to you...I am only sorry the delivery has taken so long.” He dropped his eyes ashamed.  
Cosette unfolded the piece of paper. All it contained was a list of directions to, apparently a clearing in some woods. And the cryptic note 'Here you will find funds for your wants.' She looked back at the Inspector “What is this?”  
“I have no knowledge as to what it contains. I am merely the messenger.”  
She frowned, reading it out to him and was surprised by a low chuckle and a murmur under his breath “Crafty old fox”  
“Inspector?”  
Javert shook his head slightly “Forgive me, an old memory” The grey-blue eyes came up to hers again, slightly stern “I suggest you do as the instructions suggest.” She had the breifest sense of him assessing the apartment, noting that the grate was both cold and ashless, that their clothes were verging on threadbare “If you should require some funds for a fiacre to reach that place, perhaps tomorrow, you need only ask. I am responsible in no small part for your present state.” Cosette fount her protestation cut off before it had begun with a gesture “At least allow me to make this right, Mademoiselle.”  
She nodded “Would you like some food, some tea, Inspector?” Though the scraps which would comprise their measly dinner were not fit for such a man, and they had no tea, had not had it for weeks, she felt compelled to offer.  
Another shake of the head, more reflexively this time “I have already eaten my fill at my lodgings, but might I crave your indulgence to stay the night.” his eyes flicked to the window “It is already dark.”  
“Of course” She turned to Toussaint “turn down my bed, we can fit on yours together I think.” The maid looked at her in slight surprise, but made to do as she was bidden.  
“Non” The Inspector's voice stopped them both, and on obedience to the authority in it Cosette turned back to face him “I would not wish to put you out in any way. I will be more content sleeping out here, where I may be of use should any trouble arise.”  
Cosette looked at the man, the chair was hardly comfortable, but she was not going to question this man. If he chose to sleep sitting up, then he could do so. “Bonne nuit , then, Javert”  
“Bonne nuit, Cosette.”  
The hesitancy in how he said her name made her wonder if he'd actually been on first name terms with anyone in his life.

A gentle touch on his hand roused him from sleep and he lifted his head from where it rested sideways against the chair back. He was surprised how easy it was to wake up, he'd been so tired these last months, devoid of any really energy in his work. But he had to work, he had naught else to do. He expected to see Cosette or the maid, waking him to share their breakfast and possibly to plumb whether the money on the table, enough for fiacres anywhere they needed, was all for their use, as if the note left next to it didn't say that.  
Instead his eyes rested on the one man he thought he'd never see again. He blinked, once, twice, and the white-haired man smiled, his hand still on Javert's own  
“Are you ready?”  
“Yes” A confidence he hadn't felt for years flowed through him, he didn't even need to ask what he was supposed to be ready fore, in some way he knew.  
Jean nodded, grasping his hand gently “Come.”  
He rose and crossed the room. The door opened for them, as did the front door, though he was sure he'd heard Cosette bolt it the night before. In moments they stood on the street. The air, the sun, was warm on his face, a light breeze tickling his sideburns and tied back hair. They walked down the street, side by side, and Javert didn't flinch when Jean's arm slid around his waist, it felt so natural, so right. Gradually as they walked through the streets, more people appeared, all walking in the same direction. Javert found himself falling into step with Jean, wrapping his own arm around the other man's waist.

The barricade stretched up to the sky. He stopped, staring at the immense height which towered above them. This was not the Saint Denis barricade he remembered, this was something completely different, and it was full of people. As he stared, he became aware that Jean, old man that he was, had begun to climb up the barricade, and was looking back at him . Slowly he set his foot on the first obvious ledge and began to scramble up after his friend, his lover. It was harder than Jean made it look, but he clung on, setting his jaw and looking upward. Slowly, the sky grew closer, His foot slipped, but before he could fall He felt Jean's hand close over his own, pulling him up and onto the top. They were surrounded by the students, the little gamine who'd cause so much trouble, shinning up a flag pole to be higher than the others. Javert felt a smile break out on his face, throwing one arm over Jean's shoulders as he heard the crowd's singing rise up and up, as if it had wings, and would entreat the very gates of heaven to open for them. He glanced down, meeting Jean's eyes, which shone with the same joy he knew was in his own. What ever God decided, his heaven was here.

In the morning, Cosette found the Inspector asleep in the chair, in a sleep from which there was no waking, with a peaceful, happy smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Also has an illustration; http://chrissy-24601.tumblr.com/image/58806083472


End file.
